Turkish low cost carrier Pegasus Airlines is planning to launch new services to Macedonia next year. According to the Macedonian Embassy in Turkey, the no frills airline intends on introducing services from Izmir to both Skopje and Ohrid "in late May 2019". Pegasus currently maintains three weekly flights from Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen Airport to Skopje, with six weekly operations planned for the 2019 summer season. The carrier is Macedonia's fifth busiest behind Wizz Air, Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Germania Flug, handling some 67.400 passengers on its flights to and from Skopje during the first three quarters of the year. It accounts for a passenger share of 3.7%.
Macedonia was the partner country at this year's Travel Turkey Expo, which was held in Izmir late last week. During the fair, representatives from Pegasus Airlines, as well as local tour operators and the Macedonian Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism met to discuss the planned new flights. Tickets for the new services will be put on sale directly by the airline, while tour operator Jolli Travel will also have a share of seats on each flight. Turkish nationals make up the largest number of tourists in Macedonia, with 129.708 visiting the country in 2017 alone. During the January - July period of this year, a total of 72.352 Turkish travellers visited Macedonia.
Turkish carriers have been growing their presence in Macedonia recently and plan to further strengthen their operations. This year, low cost airline Onur Air launched seasonal flights between Istanbul's Ataturk Airport and Ohrid. Turkish Airlines plans to boost its operations to Skopje next summer season with the carrier to maintain a total of eighteen weekly services, up from this year's fourteen per week. Frequencies will be progressively added from April 1 and will peak in late June. Istanbul continues to be the most popular destination from Macedonia with some 10.8% of all passengers travelling between Skopje, Ohrid and Turkey's largest city, or around 196.748 travellers. In addition, Turkish Airlines, Corendon Airlines and SunExpress continue to operate seasonal charters from the Turkish coast to Skopje.
Great. Finally some new flights to Macedonia next year.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is these will be seasonal though.
DeleteThe more the better, even if it is a route which is seasonal.
DeleteWell that ends chances of the starting flights to Nis.
ReplyDeleteMaybe TK will fly to INI
DeleteGreat news
ReplyDeleteGood to see Ohrid gets some new flights too.
ReplyDeleteWe already have multiple flights and options to IST so it's nice to see another point in Turkey added.
ReplyDeleteThese will launch unless TK blocks them, like in Tivat.
ReplyDelete?
DeletePegasus wanted to launch SAW-TIV this year but Montenegro CAA blocked them under the influence of Turkish Airlines.
DeletePegasus je zainterosovan i za S19! Ako ga CAA ne blokira...
Deletei think Macedonia and Turkey have open skies agreement
DeleteI would prefer if SKP would try and attract some European legacies like Air France, KLM, British Airways, Lufthansa that can offer good onward connections. We already have so many flights to Turkey.
ReplyDeletelol. There is simply demand for Turkey.
Delete20% of the tourists in Macedonia are from Turkey so this is no surprise.
DeleteGood onward connections?
DeleteTK flies to almost every village in the world and has more connections than all of the carriers you mentioned.
Furthermore, they offer a better product both in economy and premium compared to e.g. BA which is simply embarrasing (both in economy and premium).
Hheheh Macedonians "complaining" about many flights to Turkey while the Sarajevo lads complain about Middle East. Obviously there is interest and demand.
DeleteMany years ago Pegasus used to fly Izmir-Skopje so it's good to see the route resuming.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember which year this was?
Deletewhen TAV took over SKP
DeleteWas it year round or seasonal? How many flights were there per week and did how long did they operate? It might give us a sense as to how many flights we can expect next year on this route.
DeleteI missed this part! I didn´t know that Izmir was previously connected to Skopje.
DeleteI think it´s time for BEG to try negotiating for the same.
BEG-ADB.
The Izmir-Skopje flights were operating during 2011-2012, three times per week, launched at the same time as the SAW-SKP flight, and the flights were supposed to be year round, but they ended up being cancelled.
DeleteThanks for the info. Hopefully they will be more successful.
DeleteBut is there really demand for year round to/from Izmir?
DeleteHow many frequencies per week could we get?
ReplyDeletedouble daily
Delete:D
DeleteI'm wondering why there is no demand for Ankara, at least maybe for 2 or 3 times per week?
ReplyDeleteTK should operate these flights. I'm sure they could make an A319 twice per week work on this route.
DeleteThe Jerusalem of the Balkans is finally getting a new hope. Good look OHD!
ReplyDeleteYesterday, W6 announced a 2nd aircraft in VAR but unfortunately Macedonia was not included :(
There is potential for flights from SOF-OHD definitely.
Rather seasonal but may work. Not sure W6 would be happy with the yields.
DeleteI have been to Ohrid a few times but never to the airport. So if someone knows, what are the facilities like? Is it large/small, is there a duty free?
DeleteIt's small, but it's quite OK, you can compare the size with facilities in Nis.
DeleteTAV did some renovations when they took over.
DeleteWhich airport is bigger in size in general? Facilities, aporn capacity, movements, etc INI or OHD? People here have been comparing INI to SKP, but I see SKP bigger in size.
DeleteThis will connect 50k potential residents from ohrid struga dbar kicevo bitola korca pogradec to Izmir.
ReplyDeleteSKP will soon have to expand its terminal with such big passenger growth and new airlines constantly announcing flights.
ReplyDelete"airlines constantly announcing flights"
DeleteThis is the only announcement for 2019 so far.
The tender will lead to an instant announcement! So, don't you worry mate.
DeleteI really hope so. I hope it's not annulled.
DeleteSurprised by those numbers for Turkey. Hopefully Onur Air keeps Ohrid next summer.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a big surprise since they do not need visas, its relatively close and it's cheap.
DeleteIt still has some space till it reaches 4 mio. plus old terminal is conserved and can be used every time (around 700k capacity). However the problem is that it gets overcrowded in early morning and afternoon when most of the flights are scheduled. Moreover this ends hopes for stagnation of the airport which some people here hoped for.
DeleteBtw. can someone tell me if with the opening of the new IST airport TAV is losing its biggest airport?
Thanks. I wasn't aware capacity is 4 million. That's good.
DeleteYes with the closure of IST in a few weeks, TAV looses its biggest airport.
INI fan boys and girls will pop up now and tell you about the cuts of BCN and VXO. HAHA.
Deleteyes
DeleteAre you telling us they are wrong and that they didn't cut those lines?
DeleteGood job, Macedonia!
ReplyDeleteGreat news coming from Macedonia this year with new routes from Ohrid and Skopje. It's impressive for a relatively small market but it's definitely growing. Good work.
ReplyDeleteAgree. This year was fantastic.
DeleteFrom Skopje we had new LOT and Aegean flights.
From Ohrid Nordica, Brussels Airlines, Tui, Onur Air...
Good year.
Hope the next one is just as successful.
and two A321
DeleteHopefully same trend will continue next year but we have much less announcements for next year. Almost none except Pegasus. Yes, Wizz will introduce some new routes if they win tender but that means that all growth next year will rely on Wizz next year.
Deletenothing bad with that
DeleteJU is reducing SKP from 14 to 12 weekly next summer. I guess they can't compete with Wizz Air.
Deletethey cant compete with other legacies it seems. even OU beat them in SKP this year
DeleteThey are reducing it becauae they are rederecting the plane for a new 2 weekly route but as you will see capacity to Skopje will remain the same as if it was double daily.
DeleteIs Izmir Airport managed by TAV?
ReplyDeleteMakes sense.
Deleteits such a nice airport btw
DeleteWhy so? (not saying this sarcastically, I've never been).
Deletefrom the architecture. not your "standard" TAV TBS and SKP style
DeleteJust had a look. It does look very nice.
DeleteThis is mostly for tourists but it's still good news.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of turkish tourists visiting so it should increase tourism even more.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly number of Turkish tourists in Macedonia is down this year compared to last.
DeleteWhat are the other main tourists in Macedonia?
Delete1. Turkish
Delete2. Serbian
3. Greek
4. Bulgarian
5. Dutch
6. Albanian
7. Kosovo
8. German
9. Croatian
10. Polish
https://seenews.com/news/macedonias-10-mo-tourist-numbers-in-macedonia-rise-131-636462
DeleteBulgarians are number 1 in Macedonia. The issue with the statistics and politics. Some people just don't want to admit it.
DeleteMacedonia has 130000 Turkish visitors, Croatia 34000, you'd think it would be the other way around.
ReplyDeleteCongrats Macedonia!
Because they need visas to Croatia.
DeleteAnd Macedonia is relatively close to Turkey. Many come by bus.
DeleteEven before visas were introduced there were never over 30,000 Turkish tourists in Croatia.
DeleteYes but at that time there were also less in Macedonia.
Deletedo you have turkish daily soaps on croatian TV stations?
DeleteYes, they are among most popular shows on tv.
DeleteBasel, Vienna and Zurich
DeleteThis will be seasonal for sure. How many year round routes from OHD?
ReplyDelete2 - Basel and Vienna by Wizz.
DeleteShame they dropped London year round.
Delete^Visas.
DeleteYet the Skopje line works despite visas. It's not about visas. It's about demand.
DeleteOhrid has a lot of potential and the tourism is still not developed to its full potential. So I think we will only see flights grow more and more in the future. Nice to see Pegasus starting up this route.
ReplyDeleteAgree. It really is a special place there.
DeleteOct tourist stats in MK:
ReplyDelete1.TUR 2.GRE 3.SRB 4.BUL 5.GER 6.CRO 7.ALB 8.CHINA 9.KS 10.USA 11.SLO 12.NED 13. UK 14.POL 15.ITA
btw. CRO a staggering +87% increase
It makes sense then Croatia Airlines has also seen passenger growth on SKP route. Also impressive about Chinese.
DeleteOU should return that double daily for next summer season #airnostrum
DeleteNice to see for both Skopje and Ohrid. There are still a few airline which could start flights, particularly to Ohrid. Would be nice if they attracted Adria back. I think 2 weekly with their Saabs would work perfectly.
ReplyDeleteparticularly Air Serbia!
DeleteWell they flew last year.
Deletesome genius from Abu Dhabi moved the flights so they landed in OHD at 2am... couldnt be worse tbh
DeleteThat timings was put to pick up transfers for morning flights from BEG.
Deletetrue dat but OHD was not living from transfer pax it was peeps from Belgrade and NS on a short holiday break at Ohrid Lake. Moving the flight to after midnight to cater the new hub strategy eventually killed it. Maybe Aviolet should handle this
DeleteDoes anyone know about the projections of both SKP and OHD by 2025? In Croatia, there was a person posting those projections. Maybe he/she can help.
ReplyDeletethat person uses his kristalna kugla for that...
DeleteSo a new route to the east. Not bad. We are missing Moscow.
ReplyDeletePobeda was in the talks
DeleteThey should try and attract Aeroflot. If LJU has flights, why not SKP/OHD.
DeleteExcellent! PEgasus is an LCC so prices will be affordable.
ReplyDeleteI don't want Pegasus on the LCC, most of their routes would be probably to Turkey, especially from OHD.
DeleteJust to good. Hope that OHD will get and other new flights in 2019, I think that great can work OSL/TRF, CPH, MMX, GOT - mostly of the airports in Scandinavia because Macedonia has very big diaspora there. Flights to Italy would be also good.
ReplyDeleteI want to see Norwegian, TUI and Eurowings from Macedonian airports.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteLets hope MK airports continue the trend in 2019.
ReplyDeleteWill OK resume flights to SKP? I remember they had a lousy timetable.
I think SKP needs to be connected to PRG.
Flota aviona Pegasus airlines ima Boeing 737-800 aviona i novih Airbus320 aviona.Vrlo interesantna je situacija sto Makedonci obozavaju da lete na Boeing737 avione za Istambul,uglavnom je avion vise od 80% pun,dok kad ista aviokompanija leti na relaciji Istambul-Skopje sa Airbus 320, avion skoro da je prazan ima manje od 40% putnika u avionu.
ReplyDelete